


Favored Enemy

by cyrene



Series: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [10]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula is her own warning, F/M, Found Families, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Katara is a badass feminist, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Why can't they just get it together?, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:07:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22666735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrene/pseuds/cyrene
Summary: There is still a gun on the mantle, but Zuko maybe has learned something along the way? About family? It's complicated, but he's trying.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/265927
Comments: 12
Kudos: 175





	Favored Enemy

**Author's Note:**

> He-ey, y'all. Back so soon? I know, right? But I'm kind of on a roll rn.

They’re at the Atwater house again. Aang and Sokka and Suki are playing Full Metal Furies on the X-Box One. Toph hates video games, for obvious reasons, and pouts about it on the brown recliner, demanding they take her to the Phoenix Diner for something to eat. They’re waiting for Zuko to get off work, so it seems pretty counterintuitive, but Toph will not be swayed. Finally, Katara puts her homework aside with a sigh and offers to take her, if nothing else to shut the younger girl up for a little while.

Katara still feels a little weird driving without an adult present, but she fakes it well because it wouldn’t do to show weakness. Besides, it’s only like a ten minute drive. No reason to get fussed.

Zuko is there behind the counter when they walk in, refilling some patron’s coffee with one hand, but all of his concentration on the book in his other hand. Katara just watches him for a minute, his graceful movements and his focus making her heart flutter just as much as the tight black Ramones t-shirt he’s wearing.

“Why are you so fidgety?” Toph demands, elbowing Katara in the side.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Katara complains, and her breathlessness is surely from the fact that Toph just knocked the wind out of her.

Katara waits for him to put the coffee carafe down before she greets him. No need to cause another accident. He looks up and smiles at them, a real, rare smile that she had only begun to see recently.

“Hey,” he says.

“Oh,” Toph says, like she’s just solved a particularly complex math equation. “Hey, Hero. How’s it hanging?”

Zuko makes a face, which of course Toph can’t see, but doesn’t bother to chide her on her manners. He’s been around long enough by now to know better, Katara supposes, or perhaps he just doesn’t mind.

“We’re here for sustenance,” Katara explains, her voice proudly steady, Toph and her insinuations be damned.

He gives them a quizzical look. “I could have just brought you whatever you wanted when I got off,” he points out.

“Yeah,” Toph agrees, “but then I’d still be stuck listening to the rest of the party playing video games, and Katara wouldn’t have the chance to get all gooey over seeing you in your apron.”

Katara splutters, her face heating up, as she tries to simultaneously deny the accusation and shut the hell up so it doesn’t sound like she’s protesting too much. Curiously, Zuko’s unmarred cheek is flushed pink. Not that they’re looking at each other.

They sit at the counter while Zuko gets them coffee and goes into the kitchen to put their orders in.

“So-o-o,” Toph says, slyly grinning down into her coffee mug, “how’s _that_ thing going?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. There is no thing.” But even Katara can tell that her voice is too prim, too tight, for it to be convincing.

Toph snorts. “Okay, Sugar Queen. Okay.”

Katara grits her teeth and doesn’t dignify Toph with a response.

They stay until the end of Zuko’s shift. It’s slow enough that the three of them can mostly just sit there and chat. It’s nice, and their banter is easy and light.

Katara, for reasons entirely unknown to her, offers Zuko a ride to the game and, for some equally unfathomable reason, he accepts. They both agree that it looks like it might rain, though the sky outside is perfectly clear, and Toph, who can probably smell rain before it comes or something, snorts.

Zuko grabs the aux cord as soon as they’re in the car, putting on something loud and angry sounding and so very _him_. He and Katara argue about it the whole way over. Katara threatens to take away the aux cord and Zuko points out that, in order to do that, her hands would have to leave the safe, prescribed ten-and-two position. She wants to punch him but, because that would mean moving her hands and he’s right about that, she doesn’t.

The game goes well. They find themselves with little to do, hiding out on the outskirts of a Fire Nation town, and Katara and Zuko go wild with it, donning disguises and fighting crime at night. Everyone else disapproves, but the two of them have a blast doing it.

Then the game ends, and it’s cleanup time, and Katara is silently panicking because she’s about to be alone in the car with Zuko and, yeah, maybe it’s only for like ten minutes, but she’s still not sure what she’s going to _say_ for those ten minutes. At least she knows what to do with her hands.

Ten-and-two. Ten and two.

*

Zuko doesn’t make a habit of riding in cars, or any vehicle he isn’t driving. He likes to feel in control and, yeah, he knows that’s a bit of a problem. Katara is a really good driver, though. Very safe. Very controlled. He feels safe with her behind the wheel, in a way he hasn’t felt around anyone besides Uncle in a long time. Not that he’s comparing Katara to his Uncle. That would be weird. It is weird. Zuko is weird, and his brain does weird things.

“Not going to assail my ears this time?” she asks, and that makes him realize how quiet it is in the car. He reaches for the aux cable, but she shakes her head. “No, this is good. I can hear myself think.” She smirks a little, and it’s adorable.

They’re at the diner too soon, because it really only takes ten minutes to get there from the Atwater townhouse, and Zuko’s stomach drops a little. Seeing Katara away from the group, even if it’s only for a ten minute car ride, is like a precious gift, one that he would give himself every day, ten times a day if he could.

“It’s only six,” she says, and he’s not sure where she’s going with that, but he nods anyway, because it’s a true statement. Then, after a moment, she adds, without looking directly at him, “I’m going for a walk in the park. You wanna come with?”

“I could use the fresh air,” he says cautiously, like she might change her mind if he agrees to it. She doesn’t, though, just pulls out of the parking lot and heads towards the park.

Internally, he’s panicking. Are they finally going to talk about it? “It” being his massive crush on her, that is. Holy shit, is she taking him to the park to tell him to fuck off with that? No. Surely she could tell him off from the safety of her own home, or at the diner if she didn’t want to do it in front of all their friends. So what is this, then? Just a walk? Some fresh air and companionship? But why choose him? She didn’t really _choose_ him, though, he was just kind of there.

So there you have it. Zuko: just kind of there.

Okay, he can deal with that.

*

It’s a quiet walk. Zuko is not loquacious at the best of times, and Katara is too busy having an emotional freak out to say anything. They’re walking really close, so close their hands occasionally bump into each other, and she takes every advantage of that because she’ll take what she can get from him.

They make it as far as the tank before Katara says, “So, can I ask you something?” It was a spur of the moment thought, though, an extension of a thought train going on in her head that she would _like_ to ask him something, not something she had actually meant to say out loud.

He shrugs. “Shoot.”

Now she’s stuck, and has to think of something to ask him. There are about a million questions she could think of, so she just lets one fly.

“Would you have let me do it? Yon Rha, I mean.”

He nods, and she looks at him in shock.

“Why?”

“Look, Aang is the one you should talk to if you wanna hear about forgiveness and stuff. Go to Suki if you want to hear about sticking up for yourself. Toph, if you want to hear about getting back at the world. All I know is, it wasn’t my decision to make. It was yours. My only job, the only thing I _could_ do, was back you up in whatever decision you made.”

She has never wanted to kiss him more, she realizes as she grabs two fistfuls of his leather jacket and pulls him in closer, so close that their chests are pressed together. Maybe it’s the teenage hormones, or maybe it’s the raging feminist in her, but his reverence of her autonomy is about the hottest thing ever. Like, she _so_ can’t wait to tell her therapist about it _good_.

His golden eyes are wide and his lips are parted in surprise at her sudden aggression, but Katara doesn’t even feel awkward about it for once in her life. She doesn’t know why he wouldn’t let her kiss him back in The Crystal Cave, but she’s over it. She didn’t even know him then, not really, and now that she does...

She shouldn’t want him. He’s Zuko Sozin, Ozai Sozin’s son, the Fire Prince, and not just in their game. His family has done so much damage to so many people, her family included, that it should make her sick to just be around him.

But...

But he’s also the guy who saved her from the gangsters. And the one who helped her win the breakup. And the one who threw his head back and laughed as they rolled dice and gallivanted out into the night to rescue villagers from criminals, damn what anyone else thought. The one who backed her up in her quest for Yon Rha. He’s the guy who can’t make tea to save his life, but makes the best coffee in town and always helps her clean up after game without complaint. He’s the guy she wants.

She tilts her head up, pretty far up, because he’s almost a head taller than she is, and he’s tilting his head down with that wide-eyed look of awe on his face, and they’re going to do it, they’re finally going to kiss, for real this time.

“Zuzu?”

Zuko’s posture stiffens. He pulls away.

Katara turns to see three girls approaching them. She doesn’t recognize one of them, the one who spoke, but one of them is the gymnast Jet cheated on her with, and the other is the tall, beautiful girl from the club. The one who warned her to get out, and tipped her off to Zuko’s real identity.

“Zuzu?” the first girl says again, with a smile that chills Katara’s heart for some reason.

*

Zuko can’t breathe. Partly because of the still-close proximity of Katara, and everything that was (probably) about to happen before they were interrupted, and partly because –

“Azula?” His voice is definitely not displaying the kind of strength and self-assurance he needs to get through what is happening right now. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to find you, dum-dum. I’ve been so worried, for years now.” And her face looks so sincere, so open and –

_Azula always lies_.

“Bullshit,” he says, stepping in front of Katara a little, and let her feminist sensibilities be damned, because they’re in _danger_ right now. “What do you want? How did you even find me?”

“Your little friend – the skateboarder? You were in one of his videos. And there was a photo on Instagram. I put it together, and came out here.”

“ _Why_?” he demands, insta-sick of her shit. “It’s been five years, Azula, we don’t have any business any more.” He thinks about that for a second, then says, “Fuck this, you have nothing to say to me.” He turns to tell Katara they’re leaving.

“Father wants you to come home,” Azula spits out loudly.

Zuko stops, and slowly turns back.

“ _What_?!” he demands, his voice a harsh whisper.

“Father misses you. He has... regrets.”

Azula’s eyes flicker to Zuko’s scar when she says this. Ozai damn well should have regrets, Zuko thinks, but does he really? Azula always lies, after all.

“Father wants you home, and he’s sent me to ask you. Will you come home, Zuzu? Be a part of a family again?”

For one horrible moment, that seems so appealing that it actually hurts Zuko’s heart. But then he remembers Katara standing there behind him, and Uncle’s face when Zuko told him he was going play PoTE with a band of weirdos every Saturday. And Uncle’s face when Zuko got kicked out of school. And Uncle’s face when he got his GED. And Uncle’s face when he got the bike and first took it out for a ride around the block.

He thinks about the way Aang can’t seem to keep his feet on the ground. The way Sokka is always making plans, and how you should never get between Suki and the goal. The way Toph likes to fuck with people who think she’s helpless.

The way Katara had just pulled him towards her, and her smile the night she first said his name and he thought everything had fallen apart.

“Fuck that,” he says. “I have a family. Get the hell out of my town and don’t come back.”

He grabs Katara by the hand and walks away. He can hear Azula behind him, shouting something about what a loser he is, but he’s not paying attention, not really. They need to get out of there.

*

They make it to the car before Katara summons the gumption to say anything.

“Zuko,” she says quietly. Just his name.

He seems to collapse in on himself, his posture slouching and his face turned away. Then he takes a deep breath and straightens up.

“Katara,” he says, and his voice is scary blank, like he’s all out of emotion for the day, “I need you to call your father and tell him to come home. Use my real name.”

Of all the things Katara thought he might say, that was _not_ on the list. Her father? The boat parts salesman?

“I don’t need my father home to protect me,” Katara spits out. “Whatever this is, we can handle it.”

“Katara,” he says again in that blank voice, “just do it, please. I need to talk to your father.”

And maybe it’s because he looks so broken, but she finally nods and says, “Okay, Zuko. Okay. Let’s just get back to the house and I’ll take care of everything.”


End file.
